MARCH BOOK AWARD: Former North Little Rock resident Nate Powell, along with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Andrew Aydin, recently won the National Book Award for young people's literature for the third installment of their trilogy of books, March.
Powell, who graduated from North Little Rock High School, is a graphic novelist. The three-part graphic memoir recounts Lewis' personal story of the civil-rights movement. The series' second installment scored Powell his second Eisner Award earlier this year in the category of Best Reality-Based Work; he landed his first Eisner (for Best New Graphic Album) back in 2009, for his work with Swallow Me Whole.
Powell, who studied at the school of Visual Arts in New York, currently resides in Bloomington, Ind.
AMPING UP SUPPORT: As of Friday, North Little Rock's Argenta Arts Foundation was in the running -- in third place -- for a $25,000 national Levitt AMP music grant to get a 10-week live music series for the city's historic downtown Argenta district during the fall of 2017.
"If we win the grant, it will have significant impact on Argenta, and the relationship formed with the Levitt Foundation, as a result, could bring lots of good things to Argenta, possibly even help with the plaza development," says Donna Hardcastle, executive director of the Arkansas Arts Foundation and the Argenta Downtown Council. Tentative plans are in the works to create a permanent stage for outdoor events at the Argenta Plaza; those events are currently held at 520 Main St., Hardcastle tells Paper Trails.
The grant is sponsored by the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, a national foundation dedicated to strengthening the nation's social fabric via free live music. The Argenta Arts Foundation hopes to qualify as one of 15 winning nonprofit organizations that competed nationally.
The matching grants, designed for small- to mid-size towns and cities with populations up to 400,000, assist in producing a series of outdoor free music concerts.
Visit the Argenta Arts Foundation's proposal for North Little Rock at http://lifetime's.org. Those wishing to vote for it can do so once during the competition. Those with more than one email address may vote with each of their different email addresses.
Those wishing to support the North Little Rock proposal -- the lone one from Arkansas -- should visit https://grant.levittamp.org/voter-registration-page to register and vote. Online public voting ends at 7 p.m. CST on Monday. The 25 finalists from the 50 nonprofit organizations competing will be selected through online public voting. Afterward, the Levitt Foundation will review those proposals and choose up to 15 winners, to be announced Jan. 5.
Contact Linda S. Haymes at (501) 399-3636 or lhaymes@arkansasonline.com
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